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    Look into marinetraffic.com
    From: George Huxtable
    Date: 2010 Feb 21, 23:21 -0000

    I have no need for time-wasting software, no matter how diverting. My time
    is already well occupied. But I've just stumbled on this website-
    http://marinetraffic.com/ais/
    
    This has been assembled as a project by a number of universities in Greece.
    It collects the output from a number of observation stations, on ships and
    ashore, all round the World, which monitor the AIS signals they receive from
    local marine traffic, and it assembles the information in real-time, on top
    of Google mapping.
    
    As a really interesting example, take a look at this. When the display comes
    up, the "Live Map" tab should have been selected. Click it if not.
    To the left, under "Ships Map", is a selection box, "Go to Area". Scan down
    until you get to North Sea, and below that, select English Channel.
    
    If you wait a bit, this brings up a live map of the shipping in the English
    Channel, which you can expand or scan-around as you wish, just as with other
    Google mapping. Every 100 seconds, this updates with the new, current,
    positions, courses, and speeds of the vessels. By clicking on a vessel, you
    can discover details, such as her name, tonnage, and type, and where bound,
    and even display photos from an archive. The shipping is so dense here that
    the ship symbols overlap, until you expand the mapping somewhat. Take a look
    at the traffic, and imagine yourself in the cockpit of a small boat, trying
    to cross that lot.
    
    It's salutary to think that it's only in the last 30-40 years that there's
    been any attempt to split the traffic into separated lanes. Before that,
    there was a complete jumble, at a time when there were just as many ships
    (though smaller) as there are today.
    
    You are warned that this is not a tool for navigation, which is wise,
    because several funnies occur at times. Sometimes, a ship will disappear.
    Other times, two vessels with the same name will appear at nearly the same
    spot. I imagine these result from conflicts between the various
    data-stations. This is not an "official" service, and the data comes, not
    from the official traffic monitoring observers, as far as I can tell.
    Instead, it seems to be from a network of unofficial collaborators; a
    collective enterprise, in which anyone with an AIS receiver, land or sea,
    and an internet connection, seems to be welcome.
    
    You can see conflict situations developing, and expand the scale to see how
    vessels manoeuvre to get round each other, and how the dredgers and
    fishermen are doing their thing in the middle of the densest traffic. What
    you won't see, in general, are the small-boat sailors, for whom AIS
    transponders are not compulsory, and seldom fitted.
    
    The system is operating worldwide, though the coverage must get patchy in
    places. I imagine that it's avidly watched in Somalia, unfortunately.
    
    George.
    
    contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
    or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
    or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
    
    
    
    
    

       
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